Two weeks passed. Two weeks in which she didn’t see Magnus as he was away on a trip to Spain, apparently.
Just as well, the rational part of her kept saying. Her heart, it said something else … but she’d stopped listening. The events had also conspired to make her forget his absence. Adam had been spending most of his free time at the restaurant, getting to know her. The young doctor he was certainly had to bow to the strict dictates of his hospital shifts, but the rest of his time, he spent it with her.
She relished these moments spent with her brother, she who’d always thought herself an only child. It didn’t matter that they had just one parent in common—he was a part of her family. Even Jari had welcomed him in the Saran and Hamidi household. He’d found her through the magazine article. His siblings and he had always known their mother had been married before, but they hadn’t known about her. His sister had seen the article and through the pictures, the insane resemblance between Megha and Adam. A bit of prodding had unearthed that their mother had indeed been married to a man with the surname Saran, having borne him a daughter.
Because of their dark skin, the two of them shared something his other siblings didn’t—the contempt of their fair-skinned mother. Megha and Adam had united their hearts though this common pain. She’d met her other half-siblings for coffee, but there hadn’t been the same bond with them. Just some affection and awe.
The biggest time suck had come from where she’d least expected it, though. The true identity of their hired help, Missy Taylor, had been revealed, and for a time, Megha had thought them to be in a soap opera at the best of times and in a total circus at the worst. Missy had gotten involved with famous male model Luke Morelli—Liam’s brother—when he’d been in town, and in an all-or-nothing moment, had decided to come clean about who she really was. They’d always known she was running away from something … and that something had turned out to be a super-wealthy family in Texas who had however treated her like a pretty bauble.
When Missy had slammed the news onto her, Megha had known she would need all the reinforcements possible. There’d been Finn and Patrick to get rid of Missy’s badly dyed crow-black hair, then she’d called on the Trammell girls to dress Missy in the kind of clothing a wealthy heiress would wear.
All hell had broken loose when Luke had found out the truth and gotten stuck on the fact that Missy had been lying to him all along. Missy took that breakup bad, ending up in Megha’s flat, where they spent the night with the Trammell sisters bashing men and downing gallons of ice cream.
But all had been well when Luke had reckoned what an arsehole he was being to Missy. The two had publicly made up and professed their love for each other right in front of the restaurant during the middle of lunch rush.
And now, a few days later, Megha still reeled from all that high drama. She hadn’t had time to miss Magnus, and when she had, she had most probably been with Adam. The man had an uncanny knack of knowing her, as if the blood they shared made her an open book for him. He seemed to know everything about her heartbreak even if she hadn’t said anything, when she hardly even knew if he had a girlfriend or not back in Kent.
It was Saturday now, the day of the gala. She still hadn’t met Magnus ever since that last dinner evening with Lars and Simmi. He’d stayed in Spain all this time, claiming more and more matters concerning the clinic to be requiring his attention. From what she’d gathered, he’d be joining them directly at the gala coming from his trip.
She sat in the car taking her west of London to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. The babble of the Trammell sisters around her kept her in a haze where she didn’t have to focus on anything except add a non-committal grunt here and there to make it seem like she was following the conversation. The two-hour drive passed by in a blur. She was then handed from one person to the other once at the palace—the women for the mani-pedi, the beautician, the hair and makeup people, the stylist.
By the time they were done with her, she was a bit numb, the many shrieks and loud laughs of her companions having attacked her brain with an ice pick. Still, all of it faded as they pushed her in front of a standing mirror so she could finally see what they’d made of her.
She’d told them she would use her regular wig, to the great dismay of the hairdresser who had wanted to use one of her own wigs of flowing curls once she’d found out the bob wasn’t Megha’s real hair. So the woman had reluctantly made do, lifting little strands that framed her face and twisting and tying them back with glittering diamond barrettes that had been provided to them from the Trammell personal collection. Megha had balked upon finding this out, but one sharp word from dragon lady Amelia and she had shut up.
Her makeup was flawless—she still looked like herself but just ‘better’, like she’d gone under an airbrushing filter or something. She usually steered clear of makeup because nothing worked with her dusky complexion, but the makeup artist today had made her discover that she was actually cool-toned and not warm. No wonder the regular yellow-based makeup for Indian skin made her look like she had jaundice. Also because of the cool tones, she wore platinum jewels, gold being a total no-no for her.
“Don’t you look like a dream,” Amelia said as she entered the room.
Megha turned to her with a smile, and this time, she did curtsy to the regal woman dressed like a queen. “Thank you, ma’m.”
Amelia patted her cheek. “Aren’t you precious.”
“Not fair,” Tindra whined as she entered the room. “You have eyes just for Megha. What about us?”
Amelia laughed. “You are all looking wonderful, my darlings.”
“Oh, Megha!” Agneta exclaimed as she came in. “Our idiot brother won’t know what hit him when he sees you.”
A hot blush crept up her cheeks upon hearing those words. How she wanted Magnus to lose his marbles upon seeing her. This was the best she had ever looked in her entire life. The wig and makeup had erased all traces of the cancer on her, black satin elbow gloves covering her forearms where the veins still resembled a dark spider network.
Nothing could make her more beautiful—this was as good as it could get. If only her dad and Ben could see her now. Adam, too. She’d been told there’d be pictures, though. That would have to do.
“All right, girls,” Elsa Trammell said as she marched in, her tanzanite-blue dress swishing around her feet with her every step. “Let’s go, the guests are arriving. Don’t you look like dolls, the lot of you. And Megha, smile, my darling. Everything will be fine.”
She forced a smile and picked up the skirt of her dress. The stylist had made her wear a contraption of black froufrou under the garment, so the skirt billowed and rustled around her legs as she moved. She hardly trusted herself to take two steps and not fall. That was also the reason why she hardly ever wore Indian saris—that thick fold of fabric touching her feet? A weapon of mass torture. She also didn’t trust the delicate straps of the high-heeled sandals on her feet.
The others flew down the magnificent staircase to the ground floor where the gala was taking place. The din of hushed conversation, tinkling champagne flutes, and the subtle notes of a harp playing in the background registered in her as she touched the last step with her foot. She’d preferred to take her time coming down so as not to end up tumbling into an undignified heap by getting her feet or heels tangled in the petticoats.
The crowd engulfed her when she came down, and as she let herself drift around the room, a sense of calm came over her. Nobody was looking at her like she had no business being here, and she relaxed her shoulders a little. Some people smiled when they caught her eye, and she smiled back. Okay—frankly, she could do this.
Still, there was someone she craved to see. He surely wouldn’t dare not attend his own family’s very important gala.
Someone called her name. She turned to find Stellan making his way towards her with a smile on his face. She couldn’t help but smile in return, a little taken aback when he bent and placed a light kiss on her cheek. She’d always admired the quiet man who seemed to have a gentle soul despite the pain she’d often fathomed in the depths of his blue-green eyes.
“You look magnificent,” he told her.
It should’ve made her feel awkward hearing a man say this, but she could totally imagine Adam saying those words in the same tone, and that made her lower her guard around him.
“You’re not looking so bad yourself,” she replied. And that was an understatement, as Stellan Elriksen seemed to have been born to wear a tuxedo with a white dinner jacket.
“Won’t you introduce us?” a syrupy female voice asked.
Megha cut her gaze from Stellan to the overly thin blonde now clinging to his arm in a manner that clearly stated she had her claws in him and he was off-limits for any other woman.
“Of course,” he replied. Was that a wince she saw cross his face for a fleeting second? “Pippa, this is Megha Saran, a close family friend of the Trammells. Megha, this is Pippa Carlisle-Brown.”
He didn’t say who she was to him; both Megha and this Pippa seemed to wait for more, but he didn’t add anything. She quickly blinked away the frown that touched her eyebrows upon realising how he had introduced her. And was it her imagination, or was this Pippa girl no longer looking down at her from her straight nose with too much contouring?
“There’s Judge Campbell over there,” he said to Pippa. “Didn’t you say you wanted to speak to him?”
If Pippa had heard the dismissal in Stellan’s voice as clearly as Megha had, she didn’t let it show. Instead, she excused herself and cut a path across the room towards the judge.
Stellan gave her a little smile and pressed a hand to the small of her back, gently steering her towards the opened doorway leading to the grand space they used as the throne room on The Royals. She lost her breath at the beauty of the locale, wordlessly accepting the flute of champagne Stellan pushed into her gloved hand.
As she was running her awed gaze over the space, her eyes glimpsed someone. This time, her chest actually constricted.
She hadn’t seen him in two long weeks, and the mere sight of him proved enough to slake the sensory thirst she had been experiencing in his absence. His hair had grown a little; his fingers would leave track marks now in the locks when he’d run them through. Plus, he’d grown a beard. A little scruffy, to be honest, yet it suited him. The tux hung a little askew on his shoulders, but she could be picking this up because she was drinking in every square inch of him.
He looked … a little like a wreck, if she were honest.
Could it be he’d missed her, too?
Wishful thinking on her part, but she couldn’t help it.
And neither could she help the horror that froze her when she saw what was happening.
A tall, skinny, and leggy blonde sank her hands into his jacket sleeve, clinging to him so hard, it looked like she was trying to suction-attach her gigantic knockers that threatened to overflow from her skimpy lace dress.
Megha froze when he didn’t push the woman away. They appeared … cosy … was what she’d say.
“The bloody idiot,” she heard Stellan mutter next to her.
Still, she could hardly move, not registering her grip tightening on the fragile champagne flute until it snapped with a crash of crystal in her hand. The liquid in the glass fell away from her, missing the hem of her dress by a scant inch, the gloves protecting her palm from the broken shards.
Maybe it would have been best if the glass had actually broken through her skin. Then, she would’ve felt something—anything. Now she understood what Missy had told her about needing the pain to feel.
Then suddenly, her feet unglued from the floor, and she could turn around, grab the thick skirts of her gown, and hightail it out of there. Because she had no place in that world—in his world. Women existed as commodities for him; he must’ve been having a very good time with Miss Giant Boobs back in Spain or wherever else he’d been. She had deluded herself all this time, but not anymore.
She rushed out of the room, then had to stop when she oomph-smacked into someone. Withered yet still-strong hands clenched her arms, and she found herself being righted by Amelia Trammell.
“Megha, what is wrong, dear?”
She couldn’t tell her the truth. Amelia would laugh in her face, not hesitating to let her know that she was aiming way too high above her station. And the woman would be right. Megha was the fool who had let her heart believe …
All of a sudden, she couldn’t breathe. She struggled to form words, but it felt as if her tongue was tripling in size in her mouth, blocking her air flow, choking her. She flapped a hand, the other palm going to her knee as she bent in two and tried to win over the debilitating swelling that even stopped her from crying out.
“Panic attack,” she heard someone say. It sounded like Agneta. “Something must have upset her.”
“Take her to— Oh, good Lord. The fool,” Amelia said. “Take her to the sitting room over there. Close the door, but stay with her. Do not leave her alone.”
Agneta must’ve acquiesced. Soft hands wrapped around Megha’s shoulders, and she found herself being steered out of the big room, down a luxurious hallway, and into a smaller room with antique furniture.
Her bum landed on a cushy sofa, then Agneta was kneeling in front of her, giving her instructions to breathe. It sounded a lot like labour breathing to her, but it seemed to be working. Little by little, she allowed her heartbeat to stop racing. Her tongue seemed to return to its normal size, the perspiration on her skin leaving her cold and shivering.
And that’s when the crying started.
***
Magnus winced in the great room as his date laughed her hyena giggle in his ear once again. It had been a monumental error to bring her here, and he could see that now. Edwina wasn’t even his date but an acquaintance from his party days. Luck had had it that she now worked in the world of fertility treatments, and they’d caught up in Spain. When she’d prodded that he’d promised to bring her to the Trammell gala if ever the occasion arose, he’d absently agreed, and she’d latched on. His mind muddled by his self-imposed exile from Megha, he hadn’t thought things through. And now here he was, in this mire.
He stifled a groan. Nammy walked his way—stalked, more like—then grabbed his arm and snatched him away from the giggling fool. One look from her shut Edwina up, and she steered Magnus outside until they finally reached a deserted hallway. There, she flung his arm off and stood in front of him with her hands on her hips.
“What do you think you are doing with that parvenue?” she asked.
He gulped. Nammy must not have recognised her. “That’s Edwina Bainbridge, Nammy.”
She huffed. “Still a parvenue.”
At this, he rolled his eyes. “She comes from one of the biggest fortunes in England.”
“But has no class. Like that Pippa girl clinging to Stellan’s arm tonight.” She shook her head. “You just do not see it, do you? It’s right in front of your eyes, but you are a blind idiot.”
At this, he blinked. “What?”
If looks could hurt, he would be in flames right now, thanks to the glare she affixed on him.
“Do you have any idea what your little stunt has done to Megha?”
Ice seized his veins upon hearing this. “What? What happened to her?”
“She just had a full-blown panic attack, from what Agneta said.”
“Agneta? Does she even know what she is talking about?”
He didn’t see the slap coming; just felt it stinging his cheek.
“I thought we’d raised you better, Magnus.”
Contrite, he lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry, Nammy.”
“And so you should be.”
Everything inside him had rebelled when he’d heard Megha had been sick because of him. He’d clutched to the notion of airhead Agneta in there like a life raft. Anything to make it hurt less, when he was the one who had caused her distress.
Nammy sighed, then she touched his cheek and made him look into her face. “Magnus, can’t you see it? Megha, she is perfect for you.”
He could, and he did. But that was just it. Dare he say it out loud?
“She’s too good for the likes of me,” he muttered.
“Nonsense.”
He snorted. “She deserves better.”
“Why don’t you let her be the judge of that?” She paused, stroked his cheek. “My dear boy. Ever since she has stepped into your life, I have seen how much of a difference she has made. She took you from a boy and made you into a man. You did it all because of her.”
For her, he wanted to add, but didn’t.
“Tell her,” she begged.
This was his beloved Nammy; she shouldn’t have to beg.
“What if she won’t listen?”
“Then make her.”
With that, she grabbed his hand and pulled him to a white door that looked like the polished piped frosting on a white wedding cake. She turned the knob, pushed him inside, and before he could reckon what had happened, Agneta had brushed past him and gone out. The door closed, with the suspicious click of a key being turned in the lock.
Stranded. The old biddy had stranded him in a room with Megha.
His heart stopped as he took in the sight of her on a sofa, her bent head lifting up to see what was going on. In the process, her gaze caught his.
“How are you? Nammy. She said you had a panic attack. Is everything okay?”
He could see the evidence of her distress on her face. The tear tracks marring her perfect cheeks. Her skilfully-applied makeup didn’t appear to have budged even one millimetre, but the tears were there, glistening in her eyes.
He’d put them there … By being an abject fool. He’d run away to Spain. Frankly, he would’ve run away to any place as long as it wasn’t London and Daimsbury. Just his luck that some fertility experts in Spain had responded that Sunday to his queries to learn more about the vitrification process so he could offer it at the clinic. He’d found things to look into every single day, pushing back the date of his return, because getting home would mean needing to go to work. Needing to see her at the shop, interact with her without being able to do anything but be her friend. It was a wonder he hadn’t yet caught pneumonia from all the cold showers he’d taken over in Madrid.
But as his eyes locked with hers, he finally made peace with himself that it had all been pointless. He needed her in his life.
Question was, did she need him?
Nammy seemed to think so. Considering his grandmother’s belief, should he jump on a leap of faith here?
Megha wouldn’t be crying if the sight of him with Edwina hadn’t upset her. That must mean she felt something. Something more than friendship …
Could he bite the bullet?
“I … it … she means nothing,” he let out in a rush.
She blinked, but didn’t reply.
“I swear to you, it’s not what it looks like. I didn’t—”
“Stop. Don’t make it any worse, Magnus,” she said softly.
So softly, he wondered if he’d heard her or had imagined the words.
Could this get any worse? He took a deep breath. “Does that mean you care for me?”
She snorted. “More’s the fool me. Making castles in the sky. It seems I’m even very good at it.”
He shook his head. “Wait, what?”
She gave him a tremulous smile. “It was a dream. Me in your arms. Talking, telling you my deepest secrets. I even convinced myself we’d gone to bed together, you see.”
What was she on about? No, wait a second. This sounded a lot like the night they had spent together. Didn’t she remember?
“Don’t, Magnus. Don’t give me hope that there is more between us. That there could be more.”
He gulped, hard. Now was his chance. He took a step into the room. “But there could be, Megha.”
“What? Friendship? We both know you only care about me because of the cancer, because we met when we did and this diagnosis clouded everything. You wouldn’t have even seen me on the streets if we’d crossed paths.”
That’s where she was wrong. Because he had seen her the first time he had set foot in the shop. He had her so well that everything else had fallen to the wayside, even making him forget for a moment why he’d come to the store incognito in the first place.
Yes, he’d seen her.
How to tell her this, though? How to make her believe him?
Words flittered in his mind; words he’d heard spoken somewhere. Then Nammy’s little speech out there layered itself over them, her telling him how Megha had made him into the man he’d always had the potential to become.
“What is the thing that inspires you?” he asked. “The thing that makes your heart race.”
She remained silent, watching him with a trembling lower lip.
He reached her with a few steps and fell to his knees before her. It was now or never.
“For me, that thing is you,” he said softly.
She gasped, brought a hand to her mouth. Reaching up, he clasped her fingers, bringing her hand down and keeping it between both of his.
“You … you mean that?” she asked.
“Every word. It’s been you. All along. And after that night, I knew I had to get away—”
She frowned. “What night?”
He shook his head. “You didn’t dream it, Megha. We embraced on that terrace, you poured your heart out to me, and we slept together.”
“It wasn’t …”
“No. And I will admit I was a bloody fool for panicking. Because I wanted all this and so much more from you. Things I had no right asking of you.”
“Why not?”
Not the question he’d been expecting to hear, but he had the answer ready, nevertheless. “Because you are too good for me.”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m perfect for you,” she quipped.
And this made him laugh. Because this was what Princess Eleanor had said to Jasper when he’d said those same words.
“Then let me prove it,” he said. “Let me be the Jasper to your Eleanor.”
A laugh bubbled out of her. Then she sobered. “Is that it? My one good reason to stay?”
He shook his head. “No. The real reason is because I love you, Megha Saran, and I wish for nothing more than to spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”
“Is that a proposal, Mr. Trammell?”
“It’s everything you want it to be, everything you need it to be, as long as you take me along.”
With her free hand, she reached up and clasped his cheek. Warmth unfurled where she touched him, despite the cool gloves covering her palm and fingers.
“I took you a long time ago, Magnus.” She shrugged. “I don’t know when it happened exactly, but it did.”
His heart soared at her words. “Then please stop this agonizing wait. Kiss me.”
She giggled, then bent her head and touched her lips to his.
He surged to his feet at the contact, reaching out to clasp her in his arms so he could hold her, all of her, to him as he drank from her mouth, finally. Heat flared in his body, his hands starting to roam across her naked shoulders and trailing over the goose bumps that rose on her skin.
“The things I want to do to you,” he rasped as he tore his mouth away for a much-needed breath.
Slams on the door made them blink.
“Keep it PG in there!” someone yelled.
Megha gaped up at him. “They were listening all this time?”
He sighed. “Of course they were.” Pulling her to him, he turned towards the door. “Piss off, you sorry lot.”
“Not until you open the door and Megha can tell us herself that she accepted your proposal.”
He groaned, then turned back to her. Speaking of that … “I still don’t have your answer.”
“To what?”
“To my proposal.”
“Ask me properly.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. Sinking to one knee, he clasped her hands in his. “Megha Saran, will you make me the luckiest and happiest man on Earth by becoming my wife?”
She laughed, a sound he absolutely adored and hoped to make pour out of her every hour of every day if he had the chance.
Megha sank to her knees, too, and she unclasped her hands to come cradle his face in her palms.
“Yes, Magnus. A million times yes.”
This time, when he kissed her, it was as if fireworks were going off. It could also simply be the ruckus from the crowd gathered outside the door.
But either way, he didn’t care. Not when he had her in his arms, heart to heart, kissing her and knowing he would be making her his as soon as they set foot back in London again.
Bloody hell, it would be a long wait for this gala to be over.
But they had the rest of their lives, and make that count, he would.
The End